Courtney Conway

Standardized protocols that include the use of call-broadcast have recently been proposed for marsh birds in North America. We used data from point-count surveys collected across North America over eight years to evaluate the extent to which each of 13 focal marsh bird species responded to conspecific and heterospecific call-broadcast relative to passive survey methods. Surveyors detected more individuals during the

... COURTNEY J. CONWAY,' Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Department of Zoology and Physiology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY ... limits and issue harvest guidelines, yet managers lack information on effects of harvest on prairie falcon populations. ...

Incubation behavior is one component of reproductive effort and thus influences the evolution of life-history strategies. We examined the relative importance of body mass, frequency of mate feeding, food, nest predation, and ambient temperature to explain interspecific variation in incubation behavior (nest attentiveness, on- and off-bout durations, and nest trips per hour) using comparative analyses for North American passerines in which only females incubate. Body mass and frequency of mate feeding explained little variation in incubation behavior. We were also unable to detect any influence of foot; diet and foraging strategy explained little interspecific variation in incubation behavior. However, the typical temperature encountered during reproduction explained significant variation in incubation behavior: Species breeding in colder environments take shorter bouts off the nest, which prevents eggs from cooling to temperatures below the physiological zero temperature. These species must compensate for shorter off-bouts by taking more of them (thus shorter on-bouts) to obtain needed energy for incubation. Nest predation also explains significant variation in incubation behavior among passerines: Species that endure high nest predation have evolved an incubation strategy (long on- and off-bouts) that minimizes activity that could attract predators. Nest substrate explained additional variation in incubation behavior (cavity-nesting birds have shorter on-bouts and make more frequent nest trips), presumably because nest predation and/or temperature varies among nest substrates. Thus, nest predation can influence reproductive effort in a way previously not demonstrated--by placing a constraint on parental activity at the nest. Incubating birds face an ecological cost associated with reproductive effort (predation of entire brood) that should be considered in future attempts to explain avian life-history evolution.

... Gulf of Mexico. Final Report Arizona Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit June 2010 Christopher P. Nadeau, Courtney J. Conway, Meaghan A. Conway, and Joe Reinman Wildlife Research Report #2010-01 Page 2. 2 of 17 Table of Contents ...

Migration is one of the most spectacular of animal behaviors and is prevalent across a broad array of taxa. In birds, we know much about the physiological basis of how birds migrate, but less about the relative contribution of genetic versus environmental factors in controlling migratory tendency. To evaluate the extent to which migratory decisions are genetically determined, we examined whether individual western burrowing owls (Athene cunicularia hypugaea) change their migratory tendency from one year to the next at two sites in southern Arizona. We also evaluated the heritability of migratory decisions by using logistic regression to examine the association between the migratory tendency of burrowing owl parents and their offspring. The probability of migrating decreased with age in both sexes and adult males were less migratory than females. Individual owls sometimes changed their migratory tendency from one year to the next, but changes were one-directional: adults that were residents during winter 2004-2005 remained residents the following winter, but 47% of adults that were migrants in winter 2004-2005 became residents the following winter. We found no evidence for an association between the migratory tendency of hatch-year owls and their male or female parents. Migratory tendency of hatch-year owls did not differ between years, study sites or sexes or vary by hatching date. Experimental provision of supplemental food did not affect these relationships. All of our results suggest that heritability of migratory tendency in burrowing owls is low, and that intraspecific variation in migratory tendency is likely due to: (1) environmental factors, or (2) a combination of environmental factors and non-additive genetic variation. The fact that an individual's migratory tendency can change across years implies that widespread anthropogenic changes (i.e., climate change or changes in land use) could potentially cause widespread changes in the migratory tendency of birds.

... R. Michael Erwin 1 , Courtney J. Conway 2 , Steven W. Hadden 3. ... One bittern was detected on two dates in December 1999 and one in January 2000; this bird may have been the same individual that occupied the site in the fall (detected on all three fall surveys). ...